Democracy Now! Blog

At a committee hearing with 15 industry speakers, not one represented the single-payer perspective. A group of single-payer advocates, including doctors and lawyers, filled the hearing room and, one by one, interrupted the proceedings.

Keith Olberman reported on May 1, 2009 on an academic study published by researchers from The Ohio State University, entitled "The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report." The study looked at The Colbert Report, the popular "fake news" program, by asking people to view the Colbert segment from Oct. 5, 2006, when Colbert interviewed Amy about her book, Static.

Back in the Watergate era, the Church Committee documented and exposed extraordinary abuses by the government. Of course some people tried to block its work—Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Sound familiar? We confront a similar challenge today.

The door to justice is open just a crack. After the release of four Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos that authorized "harsh interrogation techniques," President Obama said there should be no prosecutions. Though he may occupy the most powerful office on Earth, there is a force more powerful: committed people demanding change. Torturers should be punished.

While Obama was in Turkey this week, he pledged a commitment to "bridge the divide between the Muslim world and the West." Meanwhile, in Tampa, Fl., Youssef Megahed was arrested on charges he had been acquitted of days before. In the murky world of immigrant detention, "double jeapordy," being charged with the same offense twice, is perfectly legal.

The police chief who directed Seattle’s response to the 1999 WTO protests, now sounds more like one of the protesters his forces tear-gassed. On the G-20 Protest in London, he says, "We’re now reaping what we have sown."

Obama has surrounded himself with financial advisers who are too cozy with Wall Street, like Summers and Geithner. It’s time to direct the stimulus to the people who need it, to those whose tax dollars are funding it.

President Barack Obama promises health-care reform, but he has taken single-payer health care off the table. In his proposed system, the government pays all the bills, but health-care delivery remains private.

President Barack Obama met recently with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain. The meeting was downsized from a full news conference to a small question and answer session. Are they hiding the growing divide between Afghanistan policies?

U.S. consumers are exposed to a vast array of harmful chemicals and additives embedded countless products. Industries in the US have fought regulation, while Europe moves ahead with prohibitions against the most harmful toxins.

DN! In Depth

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan — The corporate television newscasts spend more and more time covering the increasingly disruptive, costly and at times deadly weather. But they consistently fail to make the link between extreme weather and climate change.